Tempus
2016 v 26

Tidskriften

The worlds newest country is too broke to celebrate
its independence day

South
Sudan, the world's newest country, has announced it will not celebrate
its independence day this year.

Why
not? It simply doesn't have the money.

"We
decided not to celebrate the July 9 Independence Day, because
we don't want to spend that much," information minister Michael
Makuei Lueth told reporters Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera.
"We need to spend the little that we have on other issues."

South
Sudan declared independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, after
a bloody civil war with Sudan's ethnically Arab north that had
lasted decades. In a referendum that year, almost 99 percent of
voters cast their votes for independence, and much of the international
community swiftly recognized the fledgling nation.

This
year, the second Saturday of July would have been the fifth anniversary
of the country's independence. However, while the country has
celebrated in past years  even as it struggled with a new
civil war post-independence  the financial burden of the
celebrations was just too much this year.

Lueth
said that the cost of the celebrations would be at least 10 million
South Sudanese pounds, the Associated Press reports, which is
more than $450,000. If we can get this amount of money,
we would prefer to use it for resolving our problems in the economy,
such as issues of payment of salaries and so forth, Lueth
explained.

Celebrations
last year had included an official ceremony and parade with dancing
and singing. However, many observers noted that there wasn't much
to celebrate. South Sudan may be rich in natural resources, but
decades of fighting have left the country with limited industry
and little infrastructure. There are reported to be about 313
miles of paved roads in the entire country.

Worse
still, the economy had been hit hard by low oil prices. The World
Bank has called South Sudan the "most oil-dependent country
in the world," with over 90 percent of government spending
financed by oil revenues. The International Monetary Fund recently
warned that its budget shortfall could reach a quarter of its
gross domestic product and that consumer price inflation was approaching
300 percent.

According
to reports in the Paris-based Sudan Tribune, the country's Central
Bank has said that it has only enough foreign currency reserves
to last a month.

After
years of fighting that saw tens of thousands killed and over 2
million displaced, South Sudan's government signed a peace deal
with rebels last year. In April, rebel leader Riek Machar moved
to the capital of Juba to work with President Salva Kiir to build
unity within the country.

Despite
the tentative signs of stability, however, fighting has continued.
On Tuesday, a government official said that veteran politician
Ali Tamim Fartak had formed a new Islamic fundamentalist group
that had been fighting with government forces.